Education/Training Program Affiliations

Department of Cell and Developmental Graduate Program, Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Genetics, Interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Molecular Medicine, Medical Scientist Training Program

Research Summary

The goal of my current research is to understand the role that somatic mutation plays in all aspects of tumor biology. Much of our work has made use of the Sleeping Beauty (SB) transposon system to engineer mouse cancer models in which somatic mutations are generated by transposon insertions. We and our collaborators have recently described a variety of tumor models using the approach, and these studies have identified many novel candidate cancer genes. The current work in my laboratory focuses on the genetics of hepatocellular carcinoma and T-cell leukemia. In addition, we have ongoing collaborative efforts to develop SB models of ovarian and endometrial cancer. Future work in the lab will focus on using our mouse models to address relevant questions encountered by oncologists in the clinic (e.g. metastasis, drug resistance).